Under The Influence: Elliott Smith

At what age did you realise you wanted to become a musician?
Probably five, as soon as I heard The White Album. It was pretty much my inspiration, that and AC/DC.

Elliott Smith: NME (2000)

My friends and I were just starting to teach ourselves guitar in 1980. I was 11 and really into Beatles songs like Julia and Sexy Sadie— cool, kaleidoscopic chord changes. I was totally immersed in trying to figure it all out, and it was slowly happening when some madman gunned down the guide. At first, kids at school acted like it was a hoax. It didn’t seem real at the time, and to be honest, I rarely think of John Lennon as dead. There’s too much life in his music to think of him as gone. For some reason when I think of him now, I usually picture him the way he looked and sounded during the 'hairy and scary' phase, around the time of Abbey Road. Definitely on his own trip. It’s neat when you’re a kid to see people who aren’t scared to change.

My folks were Beatles fans and supposedly played Sgt. Pepper’s for me before I was born. In junior high I thought that A Day in the Life was probably my favourite song ever. Of course, now I have many, many favourite songs, but a lot of them are still Lennon songs. For example:

I’m Only Sleeping

Most songs that bring up wanting to be left alone in some way or another don’t do it as gracefully as this one. It’s cool to express and defend your own interior space without getting all hostile about it; this song makes it seem easy. I also like the way it feels as if it’s pulling itself along with its own momentum instead of being pushed forward heavily with the kick drum.

Tomorrow Never Knows

The first line kinda says it all, really. Again, it’s like he’s describing a solid internal state you can maintain without doing battle with the outside world. Sometimes the most amazing thing to me about Lennon is that he kept a positive identity despite such a cracked upbringing and crazy fame.

Cold Turkey and Jealous Guy

Being this honest can be risky, which, of course, is an excellent idea. It’ll either be sappy or brave. Or both. He chanced it and won. Other people have to write this way all the time. Lennon had access to all floors. Didn’t he also write:

I Am the Walrus

It’s dark, complicated, funny, and popular; it rocks; and it contains the phrase “goo goo g’joob.” Lyrics all over the place. I like songs like this because they activate my imagination. Coherence is fine and all, but it’s not the measure of interesting lyrics. Sonically, this song seems to be coming from a person who just busted out of incarceration somewhere.

Across the Universe

This song is fluid and musical in a way that, to me, overarches all the cultural and political commentary that surrounds his life. A really cool song can sometimes make a dream and reality trade places, maybe for the better.

Elliott Smith: SPIN (Jan 2001)

Five Beatles Cover Version by Elliott Smith

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10:58 Cry Baby Cry (pt.2) - Nursery Rhymes

Lennon dismissed Cry Baby Cry as "a piece of rubbish" not only due to the traumatic circumstances it was recorded in but also in he had a tenancy to get bored with anything he'd worked on in the past and grew, under the influence of Yoko and various therapies, to despise anything that wasn't 'real' and autobiographical. This made a meaningless, fictional flight of fancy like Cry Baby Cry an obvious target for the the later Lennon to take a shot at.

Though there's a dreamlike sense of Lewis Carroll hovering over the song, the initial inspiration for the hook came from an advertisement (as did Mr Kite and Good Morning Good Morning)* But the most obvious influence is a nursery rhyme

Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie
When the pie was opened the birds began to sing
Oh wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king? 

The king was in his counting house counting out his money
The queen was in the parlour eating bread and honey
The maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes
When down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose

It's interesting to see Lennon return to the same source again in 1980. Clean Up Time has the stanza

The Queen is in the counting house
Counting out the money
The King is in the kitchen
Making bread and honey

Here Lennon is infusing old imagery with new meaning. During the 70s Yoko took over the business affairs and John became a house husband. This clever repurposing allows John to be 'real', autobiographical and use borrowed sources all at the same time by changing only a few words.

However that doesn't take away from Cry Baby Cry. It's still a brilliantly constructed fantasy song. The sustained fairy tale imagery and portrait of mundane domesticity is built on the Beatles (and nursery rhyme's) use of parallel lyrics (Ticket 24). Consider the recurring pattern of 'character - location – activity' in the verses**

characters

The King/Queen/Duke/Duchess/Children(and the nursery rhyme's Maid)

location

was in the kitchen/parlour/garden/playroom

activity

cooking breakfast/playing piano/picking flowers/painting pictures (note all these phrases have four syllables)

Another interesting structural technique is bookending the lyrics on the chorus which Lennon also did in Sexy Sadie

Cry baby cry
Make your mother sigh
She's old enough to know better
So cry baby cry

Sexy Sadie what have you done?
You made a fool of everyone
You made a fool of everyone
Sexy Sadie, oh, what have you done?

The origin of the Duchess causes a lot of confusion online. She's from Kirkcaldy, a town on the east coast of Scotland, 11 miles north of Edinburgh.

But as for what The Bird And Bee is, it's unclear. Many say it's a plausible name for a Pub, but the fact that the Duke is 'having trouble with a message' always conjured up the image of him preparing a talk for a group like the Women's Institute.

But what do I know? And did Lennon know? Probably not. Perhaps that very McCartney style vagueness was another reason Lennon disowned this tune.

Next time we'll finish with a look at the music and arrangement.



*The proverbial phrase “old enough to know better” dates back at least to Oscar Wilde in Lady Windermere's Fan (1892) “My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all”.

**Another parallel is the meals – breakfast/tea (The king cooking breakfast / the duchess arriving for tea)

More White Album Posts

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Long Lennon Interviews (Double Book Review)

Time to take a look at two book length interviews with John Lennon: 1970's Lennon Remembers (Jan Wenner) and 1980's All We Are Saying (David Sheff).

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Book Review - John Lennon: The Definitive Biography

One of the most highly regarded biographies of John Lennon. Does it deserve it's reputation?

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Blessed Are The Drug Free (Or Why Bill Hicks Was Totally Wrong) - Extended Edition

Rubber Soul was our pot album, and Revolver was acid

If you believe drugs don't do anything good for us do me this favour; go home tonight, take all your albums and burn em, cos the musicians who made all that great music [were] real f**kin high on drugs. S**t, the Beatles were so high they let Ringo sing a couple of tunes. “We all live in a Yellow Submarine”? You know how f**kin high they were when they wrote that song? They had to pry Ringo off the ceiling with a rake to record that.

Great music + They were high = Drugs had a positive effect. Shall I walk you through it again?

Bill Hicks

It is a truth universally acknowledge that the Beatles took a lot of drugs. And the more drugs they took, the more original they became. You can even catalogue their albums by drug

John: Rubber Soul was our pot album, and Revolver was acid

Paul: For Sgt. Pepper I used to have a bit of coke and then smoke some grass to balance it out (MYFN p.384)

Drugs expanded their consciousness and informed their dress sense

George: In ten minutes I lived a thousand years...the only way I could describe it is like an astronaut on the moon...looking back at the Earth.

Ringo: It brought me closer to nature...my outlook certainly changed – and you dress differently, too!

It's also generally believed that drugs did them no real lasting harm. No one in the band OD'ed, drank themselves to death or even conked out on prescription meds*. To this day McCartney is a low-key poster boy for long term marijuana use.

Paul: Instead of getting totally out of it and falling over, as we would have done on Scotch, we'd [smoke pot and] end up talking very seriously and having a good time till three in the morning.

So it's odd to cite the Beatles as proof of the theory that recreational drugs are bad news for creativity, songwriting and a lasting career in music.

The Beatles made great music. Drugs helped them. But how much did it help? A lot or a little? Did it ever hinder them? And were the gains outweighed by the downside? Could they (or did they) gain the same benefit from other less chemical means?

Let's look at the evidence in three area - recording, writing and life in general.

Tuning up is a bit of a chore when you're stoned

Paul (MYFN p.192)

The Beatles used drugs far less often in the studio than is commonly believed

Geoff Emerick: The Beatles … rarely imbibed while they were working, and I certainly never saw any of them drunk in the studio (HTAE p.220)

Paul: most of our best stuff was done under reasonably sane circumstances...you've really got to get the miracle take if you're stoned. It can be done, just sometimes, but it may be one in a hundred (MYFN p.192-3).

Paul: We had a certain attitude towards EMI, that it was a workplace...you didn't want to mess around. That was our controlling factor. We didn't want to be lying around unable to do anything...Once or twice we'd try a little wine ... but generally you'd f*** up solos and you couldn't be bothered to think of a little complex musical thing that would have sounded great.

Ringo: We took several substances, but not when we were actually playing, because we found out very early on that if you play it stoned or derelict in any way it was really sh**ty music - so we would have the experiences and then bring that into the music later (SOL p.110).

Barry Miles: The Beatles... had a very workmanlike attitude to the studio ... they smoked pot...there were occasions where coke was available in the studio, but they avoided anything that would blur their musical awareness so there was no alcohol to speak of, and no heroin or acid. Most of their recording...was assisted by cups of tea, fish and chips or chinese takeaway, and maybe marijuana (MYFN p.191, 385).

Sometimes, however, they did get high in the studio but the result were generally poor. On Mar 21 1967, during the vocal sessions for Getting Better, Lennon accidentally took acid in the studio and had a bad trip, prompting George Martin to innocently take him up to the roof for some fresh air (MYFN p.191) In 1968, Driven mad by the never-ending Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da sessions Lennon left and returned high

“I AM F**KING STONED!!” John Lennon bellowed from the top of the stairs. Swaying slightly, he continued, waving his arms for emphasis. “I am more stoned than you have ever been. In fact, I am more stoned than you will ever be!” … And this,” Lennon added with a snarl, “is how the f**king song should go” (HTAE p.247). He launched into the piano intro with a vengeance providing the high point of an average song.

From '67 onwards Emerick posits their drug intake as the reason they were becoming “a bit complacent and lazy”

The Beatles turned up at the Studio...near midnight and spent... seven hours in a stoned haze, jamming endlessly... and pointlessly ... Lennon had brought a big strobe light in, so at one point they turned out the lights and started running around as if they were in an old film. That lasted for about five minutes, after which everyone started complaining of a headache. All four of them were completely out of it – tripping on acid probably – and it was the first Beatles session I'd ever attended where absolutely nothing was accomplished (HTAE p. 194, 197).

Ringo speaking many years later would concur

It was good to take the day before – then you'd have that creative memory - but you couldn't function while under the influence. When we did take too many substances, the music was sh*t, absolute sh*t (RR p.49) and You can listen to my records go downhill as the amount of medication went up (Express)

High or not, the sessions didn't descend into total chaos because the strung out musicians always had straight engineers and producers to capture the music

George Martin: There's no doubt that, if I too had been on dope, Pepper would never have been the album it was. Perhaps it was the combination of dope and no dope that worked, who knows? The fact remains that they often got very giggly, and it frequently interfered with our work (AYNIE p.206)

You and me chasing paper, getting nowhere

Maybe getting high while the tape is rolling is a bad idea. But what about when you're kicking back waiting for the muse to show up? Well the Beatles rarely wrote while high either.

Paul: we normally didn't smoke [pot] when we were working. It got in the way of songwriting because it would just cloud your mind up (RR p.51).

One time they did smoke pot was when writing The Word, an average (and not very trippy) song. When the time came to note the lyrics down, in true pot-head style they spent hours creating a multi-coloured illuminated manuscript with Paul adding a wash of pink watercolor, a tree and other abstract details.

No one knows where inspiration comes from but if we can work out the chemicals we could literally bottle inspiration. Drugs are a simplistic, lazy way of explaining the magic. Drugs can get us into a state vital for creativity – that of switching off the inner critic. But as any who has completed the FAWM challenge will know, being forced to write quickly will achieve the same results just as effectively.

Beer and Preludin - that's how we survived

Ringo Anthology

What beneficial effects did drugs have on the Beatles as creative people? Marijuana, alcohol and nicotine may have helped them relax but arguably the most helpful drugs the Beatles took were Benzedrine and Preludin, the Hamburg uppers found in cold inhalers and diet pills. These allowed the boys to cram their '10,000 hours' of practice into an insanely short period of time, learning stagecraft, analysing hundreds of great songs and evolving into the 'four-headed monster' able to survive the pressure of Beatlemania. Cocaine had a similar (but more limited) impact on Paul.

I did cocaine for about a year around the time of Sgt Pepper. Coke and maybe some grass to balance it out... eventually I just started to think - I think rightly now - that this doesn't work. You've got to put too much in to get too little high out it. I did it for about a year and I got off it (Uncut).

Lennon agreed

I had a lot of [cocaine] in my day, but I don't like it. It's a dumb drug. Your whole concentration goes on getting the next fix (AWAS).

Though Lennon always spoke well of LSD it seems to have had a devastating impact on him

I got a message on acid that you should destroy your ego, and I did. I was reading that stupid book of Leary's and ... I destroyed my ego and I didn't believe I could do anything. I let Paul do what he wanted and ... I just was nothing, I was s**t (LR).

According to Ian MacDonald acid left Lennon “a mental wreck struggling to stitch himself back together” (RITH p.193). On 18 May 1968 he called a business meeting at Apple to announce he was Jesus Christ. The next day while his wife and son were on holiday he invited Yoko Ono to spend the night at his mansion, recording the Two Virgins album, and beginning their relationship (RITH p.449). Lennon became addicted to heroin from the middle of 1968 to the end of 1969, partly in an attempt to wean himself off acid (BB).

Ringo by his own admission “got lost in a haze of alcohol and drugs” and missed most of the 1980's

I’ve got photographs of me playing all over the world but I’ve absolutely no memory of it. I played Washington with the Beach Boys – or so they tell me. But there’s only a photo to prove it (Express).

John had a similar but shorter bender, the infamous 'Lost Weekend' (1973-75), where he spent his evening in the Troubadour getting into a brawls, heckling comedians and sellotaping tampons to his forehead.

Harrison's self-proclaimed "naughty period” (1973–74) coincided with the breakup of his marriage, the Dark Horse album and tour. “Snorting mountains of cocaine to keep going” the drugs and constant touring “absolutely shredded” his voice (UCR/RS). Ex-wife Pattie Boyd said

That whole period was insane. Friar Park was a madhouse. Our lives were fuelled by alcohol and cocaine, and so it was with everyone who came into our sphere ... George used cocaine excessively and I think it changed him (WT).

Though undoubtedly more benign than other drugs, Paul's pot habit has arguably been a factor in the poor quality of his later solo output. Producer, Hugh Padgham (Press To Play) says

We'd stop for lunch and... he would go upstairs and smoke a joint...then he'd come down and sit there for hours trying to play the bass... the tedium. Oh! (FAB p.404).

In 1972 a drugs bust in Sweden prevented him touring Japan and the US. His Japanese drugs bust in 1980 and subsequent imprisonment also resulted in massive financial losses, cancelling Japanese and planned US tours (FAB p.363).

Did Dylan Thomas write Under Milk Wood on beer?

Remember the way Lennon categorised the albums by drugs? Here's what he actually said in full,

Rubber Soul was our pot album, and Revolver was acid. I mean, we weren't all stoned making Rubber Soul because in those days we couldn't work on pot. We never recorded under acid or anything like that. It's like saying, 'Did Dylan Thomas write Under Milk Wood on beer?' What the f**k does that have to do with it? The beer [and] the drugs are to prevent the rest of the world from crowding in on you. They don't make you write better. I never wrote any better stuff because I was on acid or not on acid (BI).

Crediting any Beatles song to the drugs they took is as almost as ridiculous as crediting Balzac's novels to caffeine or Zappa's albums to nicotine. It's is the person who happens to be a smoker, caffeine addict or crackhead who is really creating the art.

Quincy Jones: A little toke now and then never hurt anyone...but as [Charlie Parker] said, 'if you can’t play it’s not going to help you' (Telegraph).

Based on a novel by a man named Lear

The Beatles Bible asserts “LSD had a profound effect on The Beatles' songwriting and recording” and “there is little doubt that the Through The Looking Glass imagery was the product of drug intake”. But surely the primary source of Lennon's “Through The Looking Glass imagery” is Through The Looking Glass itself, a book Lennon revered. Likewise, though acid inspired Tomorrow Never Knows, the lyrics came straight from Timothy Leary reworking of the Tibetan Book of the Dead***, a book available to straight and high alike. As his childhood writings and published books prove**, influenced by authors like Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll and radio performers like Stanley Unwin and The Goons, Lennon was creating psychedelic prose long before he dropped acid. His later output owes more to the BBC than LSD.

The Beatles wrote songs about drugs (Yer Blues, Got To Get You Into My Life, Everybody's Got Something To Hide...) but that's not the same as writing on drugs. If you want to make a case for LSD helping you make music you have to do it from songs (like Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da and Getting Better) that were primarily written or recorded under it's influence. Acid trips provided the first two lines for I Am The Walrus but the rest came from Carroll, nursery rhymes and police sirens. A Day In The Life, Strawberry Fields Forever and Yellow Submarine all had similarly mundane origins.

To get really high you have to go it straight

George (RR p.54)****

The Beatles proved that recreational drugs have some benefits for creativity. But they also have a massive downside on life and mental wellbeing in general, and creativity and productivity in particular. Many, if not all, of the same benefits can be gained through limiting your options, writing to deadlines and reading great literature. As Frank Zappa said

I don't use any [drugs] and I've never encouraged it. The same state of psychedelic happiness can be induced through dancing, listening to music, holding your breath and spinning around, and any number of the old, easy to perform and 100 per cent legal means – all of which I endorse (EDQ p.68).




Footnotes

* Manager Brian Epstein died from an overdose of sleeping pills
** Lennon's published books In His Own Write (Mar 64) and A Spaniard In The Works (Jun 65) predate his acid use by 2-3 years.
***Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert: The Psychedelic Experience (1964)
****The full quote is “[Acid] can help you to go from A to B, but when you get to B, you see C. And you see that to get really high you have to go it straight” (RR p.54)

Sources

Bill Hicks - Watch the video here
MYFN - Barry Miles: Many Years From Now
HTAE – Geoff Emerick: Here, There And Everywhere
SOL – George Martin: Summer Of Love
RR – Robert Rodriguez: Revolver: How the Beatles Reimagined Rock 'n' Roll (see also this video for Ringo's quotes on drugs)
Express – Article: Ringo Starr At 70
AYNIE – George Martin: All You Need Is Ears
Anthology – Beatles Anthology Book (via Beatles Bible)
Uncut - Uncut Magazine July 2004 (via Beatles Bible)
AWAS - David Sheff: All We Are Saying (via Beatles Bible)
LR - Jann S. Wenner: Lennon Remembers (via Beatles Bible)
RITH - Ian MacDonald: Revolution In The Head
UCR – Ultimate Classic Rock
RS – Rolling Stone
WP – Wikipedia Dark Horse and I Am The Walrus
WT - Pattie Boyd: Wonderful Today
FAB – Howard Sounes: Fab: An Intimate Life Of Paul McCartney
BI - Beatles Interviews
Telegraph - Quincy Jones Interview
EDQ - Neil Slaven: Electric Don Quixote: The Story of Frank Zappa

Links

Other artists on drugs vs creativity

The BeAtletudes

70+ Songwriting Tips From The Beatles
About Beatles Songwriting Academy
Let's Build An Airport EP

Johnny (Lennon) B. Goode

Next up on BSA is Back In The USSR which has strong ties with Chuck Berry and The Beach Boys. To whet your appetite here's John and Yoko jamming with Chuck in 1972 on the Mike Douglas Show.

Ticket 37: The Lennon Edit

In the words of Ian MacDonald, John Lennon suffered from “A thoughtful impatience…a keenness to draw in the slack” (RGTTB p.370) and what appear to be odd time signature are often better understood as John's eagerness to get to the next line of vocals. So apply this songwriting trick by looking at your vocal line and simply remove beats or whole bars at points where there are gaps.

All You Need Is Love
Any Time At All
Good Day Sunshine
Good Morning Good Morning
Happiness Is A Warm Gun
I Me Mine
Julia
Savoy Truffle - verse 1 & 2
She Said She Said
The End
You Never Give Me Your Money

also

Country Blues and Folk tunes (especially as performed by solo guitarists), Advertising jingles, TV theme tunes

See also

Ticket 15: Change Time Signatures Between Sections
Ticket 29: Use Polyrhythms
Ticket 36: Emphasise Key Lyrics By Changing Chord On Every Syllable Or Word
Ticket 52: The Lennon Extension
Ticket 61: Don't Bore Us, Get To The Weirdness

See the full list of songwriting tips here - Tickets To Write

Songwriting Academy News - No Bull!

Not sure 'John' rhymes with 'LenNON' but British Rapper Dan Bull is right - if you want to be a great writer you should "write and write and write" so...

...in the name of furthering musical knowledge (and giving BSA a spring clean) I'll be posting a daily songwriting tip aka Ticket To Write

Imagine A Jump Mashup

I'm always partial to a mashup - especially if it involves the Beatles, and extra especially if it's completely bonkers yet works musically.

Enjoy

The Strange Tale Of Stewball

Skewball was a racehorse born in England in 1741 who went on to win many races in England and Ireland. His most famous race in Kildare inspired a folk ballad. Over the years the song travelled and mutated as it was taken up by English, Irish & French singers and American slaves turned the ballad into a chain gang song called Stewball. Popular recordings by Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie followed.

The Greenbriar Boys took the lyrics from a Cisco Houston version and added a new tune written by banjo player Bob Yellin. This version was recorded by Peter, Paul & Mary in 1963.

In 1971 John & Yoko released their Vietnam protest song - Merry Xmas (War Is Over) with a melody and chord progression that sounded suspiciously like Stewball with a key change, descant and a refrain added. Though the The Greenbriar Boys's new tune and arrangement means that the song is not in the public domain even now, to my knowledge there has never been any legal challenge over John and Yoko's appropriation of the tune.

 Stewball written by Ralph Rinzler/ Robert Yellin/ John Herald

Golden Ticket: The Rising 5th (Ticket 32)

Here at long last is a full discussion of the rising 5th ticket in downloadable podcast form!

or download here.

Here's a full list of all the songs used in the podcast

Minor 

James Bond Theme from Dr No – intro – Monty Norman
Savoy Truffle - chorus - The Beatles
Besame Mucho (cover) – verse - The Beatles (Velázquez/Skylar)
Secret Agent Man – intro - Johnny Rivers
Blackberry Way – verse – The Move
The Mission - 1st verse and solo – Queensryche
Brian Wilson (Album Version) – coda - Barenaked Ladies
Love Me And Leave Me – intro - The Seahorses
White America – intro - Eminem
Chains – intro/verse - k.s. Rhoads
Hey Bulldog – chorus - The Beatles
The Fool On The Hill – end of chorus - The Beatles
Cry Me A River – verse – Arthur Hamilton
Hangar 18 - intro and verse - Megadeth
Glass Onion - instrumental break - The Beatles
Better For Me If I'd Never Been Born -end of chorus – Matt Blick
Ain't Misbehavin – mid 8 - Fats Waller

Major

I'll Be On My Way - intro – The Beatles
Don't Ever Change (cover) – intro/bridge - The Beatles (Goffin/King)

Take Good Care Of My Baby (cover) - intro – The Beatles (Goffin/King)

From Me To You – bridge into verse – The Beatles
Ask Me Why – bridge - The Beatles
All Or Nothing At All – mid 8 – Altman/Lawrence
Raining In My Heart – verse - Buddy Holly
The Rain Song – instrumental break - Led Zeppelin
Isolation – intro/verse - Plastic Ono Band
(Just Like) Starting Over – intro – John Lennon
Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive – Bing Crosby And The Andrews Sisters
Because – intro, verse - Dave Clark Five
Kind of a Drag – intro/chorus - The Buckinghams
It's a Laugh – chorus - Hall & Oates
Old Before I Die - end of verse – Robbie Williams
It's All Been Done – pre chorus/bridge - Barenaked Ladies
Maybe This Time (from Cabaret) – verse – Kander/Ebb

Major and Minor

Losing My Mind (from Follies) verse/bridge – Stephen Sondheim
Mis-Shapes – Pulp

thanks to Nancy Rost, Cliff Middleton, Thomas Spademan, John Argentiero, Rick Amorphis, Rod 'Downburst' Johnson & The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles by Dominic Pedler

More tickets to write and golden ticket posts

Other versions -
UK The Songwriting Secrets ... (Kindle)
USA The Songwriting Secrets ... (Hardback)
USA The Songwriting Secrets... (Kindle)

Solo Beatles

The White Album has gained a slightly unfair reputation as being merely a collection of Beatles solos tracks, but it does contain some, along with 3 other albums.

Allow me to take a post to test your knowledge dear readers.

In the 211 official tracks there are only 9 songs featuring a solitary Beatle - one each from Ringo, George and John and a massive 6 featuring only Paul.

OR to look at it another way

6 appear on The White Album
1 each on Sgt Pepper, Abbey Road and Help

and as a bonus question can you name ANY of the seven tracks that appeared on an official UK Beatles release that featured NO Beatles at all?

PLEASE don't leave any comments here. Once you think you know the answers click here to check and leave a comment.

What Goes Online - April 1 2012

Henrique Fogli was kind enough to interview me for his Creative Insights blog on the subject of creativity and whaddyaknow - The Beatles came up! You can read it here.


I've never been convinced by some of the great 'Hard Day's Night mystery chord' conspiracy theories in the past, but this video has won me over.

Thanks to 22 Words

There's nothing more guaranteed to generate loads of comments than a post called Five Songs Where The Beatles...Well...Sucked and Something Else went there. For the record I'd call it 1 great, 2 good, 1 OK and 1 lousy song, but that doesn't have the same ring. Can you guess which is which?

On the back of the news that Abbey Road was the best selling album of vinyl album of 2011, Ultimate Classic Rock conducted a poll of Best Beatle Album. The poll seems to be a weird mashup of UK and US releases but here's the results

Abbey Road 26.69%

The Beatles (The White Album) 17.17%

Revolver 16.22%

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 15.53%

Rubber Soul 13.88%

A Hard Day's Night 3.46%

Let It Be 3.03%

Magical Mystery Tour 2.42%

Meet The Beatles! 1.6%

What do you think?

Lastly, if you're into fab gear (there's a joke in there somewhere...) then you might like the site at The Canteen 

10 Preconceptions About The Beatles (pt 2)

In my last post I listed a few preconceptions I had when I started this blog two years ago. Let's see if I was right...

1) The Arctic Monkeys are better songwriters than the Beatles

WRONG – Arctic Monkeys were another young British band with regional accents and cheeky sense of humour whose sudden rise to fame looked like something akin to Beatlemania. The big difference was that, in Alex Turner, they had a lyricist with the wit and sharp eye of a young Dylan and they burst onto the scene with a fully realised sound/style. When they survived the hypestorm almost completely unscathed and delivered an assured and mature second album without pausing for breath (along with another albums worth of quality B sides and EPs) it looked like they were unstoppable.

But 2009 changed all that. Album number 3 was largely dour, turgid and overly influenced by producer Josh Homme and I had started listening to the Beatles. Arctic Monkeys are a great band, far better lyrically than The Beatles and quicker to mature in the studio, but they need to turn in another 8 or 9 incredible albums that continue to develop and stretch to claim the crown, and sadly that doesn't seem likely to happen.

2) Judging the Beatles for trite lyrics is merely a result of unfairly comparing song lyrics to printed poetry

WRONG - Compare any song lyrics to poetry by putting them side by side on a page or even read them aloud and the lyrics are guaranteed to come of worse. BUT. Many of the Beatles lyrics are undoubtedly poor, even when compared to other pop song lyrics. The truly awful outnumber the excellent, and the average and mediocre outnumber both. There's hundreds of better lyricists out there - Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Nik Kershaw, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen – the list goes on and on and on...

3) George Harrison could have been as good a songwriter as Lennon and McCartney (and was later) but wasn't given a fair chance

WRONG - This assumption came from two things, Harrison knocking the ball out of the park on Abbey Road with Here Comes The Sun and Something and the fact that his first post Beatles album was a critically acclaimed TRIPLE album! While Harrison compared his time in the Beatles to a 7 year bout of constipation (which I guess would make All Things Must Pass a giant diarrhoeic bowel movement) the general perception is that ATMP was a mix of classics and filler (think Use Your Illusion). I don't have an opinion as the album is still on my 'to do' list, but even if it was a 24 carat disc, the next album of originals didn't arrive till 3 years later and Harrison only managed 7 more solo albums in the next 27 years.

We could indulge in 'What If' scenarios (that's what comments sections are made for!),

Lennon/McCartney/Harrison? – too many chiefs in the kitchen
Lennon/Harrison? – too similar, an overdose of dark cynicism that would make Roger Waters sound like The Wiggles
McCartney/Harrison? – might have worked. But would we have lost out on Lennon/McCartney songs? And surely Paul would have driven George crazy? (see Let It Be for further details)

but whatever may have been, George was never in John and Paul's league. Harrison's songwriting career didn't start till Dec 63 with Don't Bother Me and then nothing happened for another 18 months. Lennon and McCartney just had too big a head start. I think it's comparable to Dylan, Springsteen and Bon Jovi. Each are good writers in their own right and genre, but if Bon Jovi had been in Springsteen's band or Springsteen in Dylan's they would never have been able to compete and would never have developed. (OK, maybe that's a poor example!)

4) John Lennon gave up songwriting to be a house husband and was just coming into his prime when he was killed

WRONG - I'm not even going to get into the whole 'was Lennon really baking bread and reading bedtime stories or just having a Brian Wilson-style drug-fuelled hibernation?' debate. It's sufficient to say Lennon's solo career was hampered by the same laziness and apathy that plagued his work with the Beatles and his resurgence, while very welcome, produced yet another mix of promising songs and Yoko's experimental crap swimming in bland, middle of the road production. The posthumous leftovers Milk And Honey only promised more of the same.

What do you think? Am I right now?
I'll look at the remaining 6 assumptions next time.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

If you're reading this sometime after 1pm on monday you can head over to steampunk visionary Tom Slatter's Indiesongwriter.net blog and witness me and Tom duking it out over whether The Beatles are the best band for songwriters to study.

And here's one of Tom's cool futuretro videos The Beast of the Air to keep you going till then

I Want To Be Your (Cave) Man

I'm a big fan of the Film Sack podcasts where Scott Johnson and co watch a (usually) bad (usually) 80's movie and then (usually) make fun of it in a very entertaining way.

This week they watched Ringo Starr starr in Caveman. It wasn't pretty.

If you like it be sure to check out the archives.

Have a great weekend.

Guest Post: Getting Naked With John & Yoko

Today I'm honoured to have a guest post from my blogging buddy Nicholas Tozier to share with you. Be sure to check out his blog The Halted Clock. It's a great resource for all songwriters looking to stray a little off the well worn paths.

Disclaimer: It was really hard to find a family friendly image for this post!

Two Virgins is an album released by the Beatles' short-lived Apple experimental music record label. In its original form, this record didn't contain any conventional songs.

The cover art, which is more famous than the recording itself, shows John and Yoko standing together naked. The album is apparently intended as an expression of love.

I listened to the Rykodisc reissue. And though I listen to many composers and jazz artists who perform very dissonant and cerebral music, this recording didn't interest me.

Side 1

Keening, birdlike, whistling sounds. Wailings, ululations, siren-like noises, and outright screaming from John and Yoko.

There are a few moments where the recording drifts into something that resembles more straightforward music, like Hawaaian slide guitar. This lulls you into thinking you know what's coming next. Instead, you're jarred with something dramatically strange at the anticipated moment. It sounds like John Lennon dropped his guitar. Or something went horribly wrong with a giant zipper.

Yoko's improvised vocalizing is largely animalistic here, occasionally lapsing into nonverbal singing. I admire her willingness to sound completely ridiculous while experimenting with her own vocal folds. I can hear Yoko consciously involving her nasal passages, then adding some very wobbly vibrato, then going deeper into her own threat to add guttural croaking into the mix. Hooray.

SIDE 1 cuts off abruptly.

Side 2

We start off with some interesting textures: low-end hum, light hiss, and distant-sounding organ. Enter Yoko humming and nonverbally singing.

Then we hear something like a high keening sound while a tugboat blats. Hmm.

I'd like to interject the comment that at times this sounds like it might have been the soundtrack to a vintage horror film. The album sounds like a primitive work of madness.

Around 2:00, Yoko transforms into some kind of croaking bird. Then massive fields of low-end hum pan from speaker to speaker for a bit.

4:00: This is where I start laughing like a hyena until about 5:40. You'll have to hear it for yourself.. It sounds like trumpets jabbing an archaeopteryx repeatedly in the rear. Terrific.

Bonus Track from Rykodisc

Some commercial songwriters claim that if you walk away singing the hook of a song, that song is a success.

Remember Love is useful for challenging that notion.

This song is extremely catchy because it's so simple and repetitive... but the lyric doesn't develop. The song offers nothing musically adventurous or lyrically insightful.

Nice sentiment, though. Pleasant enough fingerpicking patterns from John, but nothing really exceptional here.

If you'd like some nonthreatening sound textures and one vague, warm-and-fuzzy line about love repeated again and again, though, Rykodisc has answered your letters with this reissue.

Conclusion

I'm unlikely to listen again, and I don't recommend the album. There are far more interesting works of experimental music out there--Derek Bailey, John Zorn, and Kronos Quartet come immediately to mind.

With that said, though, I can at least appreciate the spirit in which Two Virgins was recorded. It's a homemade piece of experimental music by two people in love--and given the expectations of John Lennon's fans, recording and releasing this album was a gutsy (or pretentious) move.

Other guest posts: What worship songwriters can learn from the Beatles (Mark Altrogge)

Blowing My Own Trumpet On Songwriting Scene

It's finally released on the internet. Nah, not the Beatles back catalogue! My guest post for Sharon Goldman at  Songwriting Scene entitled Five Unusual Songwriting Tricks From The Beatles

Songwriting scene is a great blog well worth checking out and I'm honoured to be let lose over there.

Lennon & McCartney on songwriting then and now

Two intriguing videos on songwriting. First Lennon & McCartney explaining how they collaborate while sitting at a piano. Then a behind the scenes glimpse of McCartney wrestling with 80s computer technology as he works on Standing Stone.







Related post: Beatles studio outtakes

Mark Altrogge: What Can Worship Songwriters Learn From The Beatles? (pt 1)

The Beatles have influenced thousands of songwriters across all kinds of genres. One such writer is Mark Altrogge.

As well as being the Pastor of Sovereign Grace Church of Indiana, PA, in the last 30 years Mark has written hundreds of songs, that are being sung in thousands of Churches. His song I Stand In Awe is still one of the 100 most played Church songs 26 years after it was written.

Today though I'm honoured to have him standing in as the first guest lecturer at The Beatles Songwriting Academy. In part one of a two part interview I asked Mark where he'd originally encountered the Beatles.

Meet The Beatles

Mark Altrogge: I first saw the Beatles for about 30 seconds on a show called The Jack Paar Show, then a couple months later in February 1964, I watched their debut on the Ed Sullivan Show. It was electrifying - like watching fireworks for the first time - I'd never seen or heard anything like them.  As soon as I saw them, I wanted to be like them, performing to throngs of screaming girls who'd chase me down the street like they chased the Beatles in the movie "A Hard Day's Night."

Later my parents gave me a cheap record player, and my first album - Meet The Beatles (their first US album). I played it approximately 10,000 times.  Soon I was taking guitar lessons and formed a band with 3 friends called "The Blades."  My job in the band was to listen to a record, learn all the parts (guitar and bass) of a song and teach them to the other guys.  That's how I learned about chords and song structure.

My Generation - Altrogge 1972

I continued playing in bands until Jesus apprehended me at age 24 when I encountered one of my first praise choruses - "This Is The Day":

This is the day, this is the day,

That the Lord has made, that the Lord has made.

We will rejoice, we will rejoice

And be glad in it, and be glad in it.

(Repeat 300 times in a row over a 3-chord polka rhythm). 

God used the truth of that song to teach me much - he's sovereign over every day and everything - that's reason to rejoice and be glad!  But it was hard to sing for 20 minutes at a time.

In A Gadda Da Vinci

I started writing obscure "Christian" performing songs, the meaning of which could only be decifered if you analyzed them with the Da Vinci code.  Then one day God spoke to my heart to write a worship song.  I thought I'd try to write praise songs with music I'd like - like the Beatles or Traffic.  And I thought it would be easy.  Little did I know how hard it would be...

Anyway, that's how I got started.

Matt: What could someone writing Praise & Worship songs learn from the Beatles that they couldn't learn just as well (if not better) from Chris Tomlin, Matt Redman or Mark Altrogge?

Mark: Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman are great songwriters who have tons to offer. They write creative lyrics with memorable, fresh melodies.  There's much I have to learn from those guys.  But what can we learn from the Beatles?

One of the Beatles' incredible strengths was the variety of styles they wrote in - from rock songs like Get Back to vaudeville-esque songs like When I'm 64, accoustic-folk sounding songs like You've Got to Hide Your Love Away to ballads like She's Leaving Home, and classically influenced songs like Eleanor Rigby.

Escaping Your Own Musical History

One of the hardest things about songwriting is to escape the style of music you grew up with - I'm regularly accused of copying the Beatles (hey, if you're going to steal, steal from the best).  The Beatles pushed themselves creatively and branched out from their original style.  They tried different instruments like the mellotron in Strawberry Fields, the sitar in Within You Without You, and the harpsichord in In My Life.

The Beatles' creativity suggests they listened to a variety of music (and it didn't hurt that they had a great producer, George Martin).  Many Christian songwriters I know listen to very little music outside the Christian genre and thus limit themselves creatively.  Songwriters should listen to all kinds of music. Listen to jazz, movie scores, Irish music, and Broadway musicals.

Keep listening to current secular (use discernment with the lyrics) and Christian music.  However, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT listen to country music.  HEY - JUST KIDDING!  Put down that pitchfork, cowboy.  Even the Beatles did some country-esque songs like, Act Naturally and Don't Pass Me By.  Ringo sang the country tunes - what does that tell you?

The Beatles encourage us to push ourselves creatively.  We often settle too quickly for our first draft of lyrics or for chords and rhythms we've used before.  We can learn from the Beatles to be more creative.

Read part two.

(If you've enjoyed this interview why not subscribe by email or RSS and join me as I ransack Lennon & McCartney's back catalogue for songwriting ideas and Beatle-tudes on a regular basis?)